Page:Brandes - Poland, a Study of the Land, People, and Literature.djvu/48

36 themselves with their occupations, and are in despair that every second or third year they have to interest themselves in something quite different. They meditate with anxiety on what the next year may bring.

One evening, when Feuillet's Dalila was acted at the theatre, and when the actor who took the part of Carnioli was not especially happy, I could not suppress an outburst of wonder that the actor could be in want of a type of the genial dilettante who educates the young composer, in a city like Warsaw, where there are so many men of Carnioli's stamp. The most admirable type stood by my side behind the scenes. And the same evening, when in a large circle I was asked how as a critic I would characterise Polish society, I answered: "You are a society of dilettanti."

I believe that the definition is correct, taking the word in its broad sense, and bearing in mind how the Poles have come to be what they are.

We must picture to ourselves a naturally very energetic people, against whose energy a barrier not to be broken down has been erected, a warlike people, who only reluctantly enter the army, in which practically no young man voluntarily chooses the post of officer; an extremely ambitious people, to whom all high positions and offices are closed, and to whom all distinctions and demonstrations of honour are forbidden, in so far as they are not bought with sacrifice of conviction or denial of solidarity with their countrymen; a people naturally hostile to Philistine ideals, but who needed to acquire the civic virtues, and whose circumstances now give them constant encouragement to unsteadiness; a pleasure-loving people, in whose capital not a single public place of entertainment is found; a people with a lively irresistible inclination to politics, for whom all political education has been made impossible, because they are allowed neither to elect representatives nor to discuss affairs of state, and whose political press is silenced in all political matters; to speak of political newspapers in Poland is like speaking of nautical journals in Switzerland. Let us imagine to ourselves this people, constituted for a large free life in the broad daylight of publicity, imprisoned in the